


Where Are You Goin’

by sonshineandshowers



Series: Martin's Murder Playlist [6]
Category: Prodigal Son (TV 2019)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Mental Health Issues, Papa!gil
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-07
Updated: 2020-04-07
Packaged: 2021-03-01 16:55:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23520427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sonshineandshowers/pseuds/sonshineandshowers
Summary: A drive to take Malcolm home turns into an evening of low key carpool karaoke for Gil and Malcolm.Martin's Murder Playlist Series: New York's Not My Home.
Relationships: Gil Arroyo & Malcolm Bright
Series: Martin's Murder Playlist [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1685980
Comments: 4
Kudos: 35





	Where Are You Goin’

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [New York's Not My Home](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/579562) by Jim Croce (performed by). 



> someone on the discord server mentioned gil and malcolm singing at some point, and my head went to carpool karaoke

Malcolm sat in the passenger seat of Gil's car fidgeting with his fingers, counting how many joints they had, picking at the sides of his fingernails. He'd nearly ripped off a hangnail when he realized he needed to do something else with his hands. He reached over to turn on the radio.

The middle of an Emmylou Harris song came on, Malcolm recognizing her voice, yet not knowing the song. He went back to playing with his fingers, stretching them out and curling them in, wrapping them around his thumbs, locking them together as tight as the stress tensioning his chest, constraining his breaths.

"You okay, kid?" Gil looked over at him.

"Been better." His fingers strangled his thumbs again. Perhaps if he choked them out, he wouldn’t claw at his own throat. That’d bring a lot more questions.

"Something I can help with?"

"This is enough." Gil was _always_ what he needed, even if he didn't know what for yet. He took in a deep breath, comforted by the cinnamon of Gil embedded in the upholstery.

"Change in meds helping?"

"Not really. Maybe it hasn't been enough time." He kept bridging and unbridging his hands in his lap. "I don't know."

The announcer's voice tipped over into the next song.

 _Well, things were spinning round me_ —

" _And all my thoughts were cloudy_ ," Malcolm joined in singing, his voice quiet, not holding the notes for very long. " _And I had begun to doubt all the things that were me_."

"You know this?" Gil smiled, surprised, looking over at him.

Malcolm nodded, his face pinkening. Whoops, that had been out loud. He sat out the next few lines.

Gil picked up at the chorus, his warm tenor singing, _‘Cause I know that I gotta get out of here, I’m so alone, don't you know that I gotta get out of here, ‘cause, New York's not my home._

Gil’s singing voice seeped into Malcolm’s ears, relaxing some of his tension. Malcolm hadn’t heard it in a while, not since it’d been three of them.

“Go on,” Gil encouraged.

“ _Though all the streets are crowded, there's something strange about it. I lived there about a year and I never once felt at home_ ,” Malcolm started back in. The story was so accurate to his existence, it was startling, and he trailed off at the end.

Gil reached over to his shoulder, squeezing that he should continue. Gil glanced over a moment, and they caught each other’s eyes, Malcolm gaining confidence from him. They made it a duet on, " _And it's been so long since I have felt fine_."

They rolled into the chorus, going up and down the hills of the lines. Malcolm felt his fingers relax into a more casual shake rather than rampant anxiety. Gil played with harmonizing with him, feeling for notes that would make the sound more interesting. It was far from a perfect rendition, but the unexpected addition to their day passed the time.

They flowed through the rest of the song, Gil fading in and out through the pieces that he knew, letting Malcolm pick up the pieces that he didn’t. Malcolm’s notes lacked the full sound of commitment, and Gil’s ran flat, rusty, but together, there was a harmony of friendship.

The song ended and tipped over to commercial. “ _Prices! Prices! Prices!_ “ a car salesman’s voice came over the radio, and Malcolm turned the volume down.

"Where'd ya learn that?" Gil asked.

"My — Dr. Whitly. He uh, played a lot of Croce’s music. Around the house, on camping trips,” Malcolm explained, looking out the window. Malcolm wound his fingers into the door handle, giving them something to do again.

"Oh. I'm sorry,” Gil’s voice carried the regret of bringing up a sore subject.

"It's not all bad. Perfect father,” Malcolm brushed it off with a shrug.

"Kid."

"Yeah, you've always been the better dad." Malcolm squeezed the door handle tighter.

"Does New York feel like home?" Gil posed.

" _You_ feel like home."

"You need a break?"

”You ever watch _Carpool Karaok_ e _?_ " Malcolm changed the subject.

"Not familiar."

"A host and his guest drive around the city singing songs,” Malcolm detailed. “Usually the guest’s tunes.”

"Does that make me the host or the guest?" Gil chuckled.

"Host."

"So I pick the songs?"

"A producer picks,” Malcolm shared the technicalities.

"My car — I'm the producer,” Gil said with joking authority.

"So many hats." Malcolm spun his hand between them. His stomach rumbled, and queasiness rose to his throat.

"See if ya can hit the top in this," Gil challenged, queuing up the next song.

"I'm no Steven Tyler,” Malcolm warned, hearing the lead in to _Dream On_.

"Live a little, kid."

Malcolm curled his form up into the door, his hands over his displeased stomach. “Maybe another time.”

“You want to pick?”

Malcolm shut the radio off, bringing the car back into silence. He took a deep breath, willing his stomach to cooperate. Gil, car, him. Gil, car, him. He focused on the concrete things to keep his attention away from his insides.

“Spoilsport.” A statement without vehemence.

“I’m not that good.”

“You know you’re a hundred times harder on yourself than anyone else is? Yet you don’t hold anyone else to that expectation?”

“Can we just drive?” Malcolm’s voice was muffled in his shirt.

“Home?”

“Out.”

The car took a lap around the next block and headed north. “You alright?”

“No.” Malcolm’s stomach clenched around lack of food? Stress? Meds? He didn’t know. The sooner he got home, the sooner he’d have to face reality and deal with it. He needed Gil, a safe space, some sort of distraction. “Can you sing?” Malcolm requested.

“Sure.” Gil reached away from the wheel to turn the radio back on.

_Are you ready, hey, are you ready for this?_

“ _Are you hanging on the edge of your seat?_ ” Gil sang and continued to lyrics that reminded Malcolm of Gil’s earlier policing days, when he got to hear stories of arrests.

Gil made it through the chorus when Malcolm asked, “Were your stories always real?”

“Which ones?”

“The ones you used to tell me in the car on stakeouts.” Malcolm kept taking slow, deep breaths.

“Yeah. Mine or other officers’ experiences.”

“Even the slingshot death?”

“Even the slingshot.” Gil rubbed his shoulder again. “You’re questioning death by slingshot when you’ve seen a handful ten times crazier in the past year?”

Malcolm shrugged and turned over toward Gil instead of the door, still curled up.

Gil reached over his head to rub his shoulder. “Are you at gonna ruin the interior of my car bad, or we need to get you a snack?”

“Already killed one car.”

 _May she rest in peace_.

“I dunno.”

Gil cracked the window on Malcolm’s side, seeing if some air circulation would help. He turned the radio back off, Malcolm not seeming to care about it anymore.

Several miles later, Gil thought he’d lost Malcolm to sleep. Then a quiet voice sang in nearly a whisper, a tune almost like a lullaby —

_And I never knew the words ’til they were singing_  
_The look of light ’til it came crashing through your eyes_  
_The hope of getting through the nighttime into morning_  
_Brought tomorrows I never thought I’d find_

“What’s that?” Gil asked. “Don’t think I’ve heard it.”

“Mine.” Malcolm sat up, his stomach tempered down to still annoyed, but not painful. “Bit I wrote in a journal a long time ago.”

“It’s nice. Should do something with it.”

“It has an audience of one. Well, two. No, three now,” Malcolm corrected himself, adding Sunshine and then Gil to the count. “Do you still have Jackie’s writings?”

“Yeah. Of course. Can come take a look at them sometime if you like.”

Malcolm nodded, wondering if her scraps of ideas would look any different with the passage of time.

“We’ve gotta stop and get gas. Didn’t know we were going for a joyride.” Gil smiled, the crinkles at the corners of his eyes joining in.

“I’ll pay for it,” Malcolm promised, taking out his wallet.

“Can I trade you that for stopping at a diner and getting you some toast?” Gil negotiated, accepting the card he handed over.

“Yeah. Maybe not the smell, though,” Malcolm shied away from further disruption of his senses. The noise probably wouldn’t be that great either.

“We’ll take it to the park. Hide mine in the trunk,” Gil suggested.

A hint of a smile crossed Malcolm’s face. “’S fine.”

“Raincheck for more carpool karaoke?” Gil asked with the door open.

“Yeah,” Malcolm agreed. He sat in the car thinking of what it would be like to write and sing with Jackie while he waited for Gil to return. He wasn’t any good, but _she_ — she was everything.

* * *

_fin_


End file.
